Moo Talk

There’s news the other week that Marks & Spencer are set to start charging for carrier bags in their outlets and we at Hotcow find this rather interesting. It has, as most people know, been on the cards for sometime with trials having been in place at 50 stores (in N. Ireland and the South-East) since early last year. This is not the interesting part per se – no, we like the way the entire “project” has been announced and planned for several reasons.

You may remember the news some weeks ago that Mark Boyle, a former organic food company boss and now a member of the “freeconomy” movement (which aims to get rid of money altogether in order to foster a return to community based living) decided to walk from Bristol to India without any form of currency to show his faith in humanity and, presumably, promote his philosophy. Well, the attempt has failed after reaching Calais, when it was realised that no one in the party spoke French. Farcical.

Women are different to men we already know this…and if some of us don’t is there really any hope for the human race? However, there are plenty of people – notably in the advertising industry – that don’t seem to know just how different….and persist in either marketing products to women as if they had either exactly the same motivations as men or were a minority market lacking in real purchasing power. This is wrong on both counts.

News the other day that Facebook has seen its first drop in UK users since Nielsen Online first started collating data on the site in July 2006. The fall – of 5% - equates to a slide from 8.9 million users in December to 8.5 million in January. Whilst this slide won’t worry either Facebook or its competitors unduly it does raise an interesting talking point…when does a lot become too much?

First up in this week’s overview is the news that Hasbro – makers of Monopoly amongst – have signed a six-year deal with Universal to produce at least four films based on Hasbro brands. The first will be released in either 2010 or 2011 with one film per year after that. Candy Land, Battleship and Ouija are included in the partnership, but not ...

Bernard Matthews has announced that it is on the hunt for a creative agency after announcing that it plans a new advertising campaign this autumn. Their last campaign ran in 2007 as an attempt to win back customers following the bird flu crisis earlier that year. Naturally this news has us idly wondering how we’d go about adding an experiential edge to what is, most likely, going to be an entirely print and visual media based campaign.

In our industry we come across all kinds of service providers, and sometimes there are those few that really stand out from the herd. Whilst doing some research for a client we had to look into sand sculptures of the oversized kind. We got in touch with the international ....

There is the perception in the marketing industry (also seeming to affect our client brands) that event sponsorship is only a worthwhile or prestigious marketing tool when the event concerned is high profile. Indeed, “high profile” appears to be the only concern for those seeking to sponsor events. Furthermore, this desire for the high profile event seems, to a great degree, to bypass considerations of relevance to client brand and, even more importantly, consumer perceptions.

Some of you may have noticed a story in the news the other week (well, maybe not, it was only released on Valentine’s Day…when our minds tend to be on other things) about Diageo, the drinks giant, announcing a half year pre-tax profit of £1.37 billion – 5% up on last year. You may wonder why this is in any way interesting – other than being a sort of proof that when the economy starts to wobble, we drink more.

Every now and again it pays to cast your eye over the news to see what’s on the horizon (or coming up fast) – you never know what you’ll find and how it may prove useful. One thing, however, is certain; you won’t get to the top of your profession without having a good idea of what’s going on in general terms…as ever, we’re here to help you.

January is a busy time in the office – the last of the Christmas season campaigns have completed and, in all but a very small proportion of cases, all the follow up activity and debriefing has taken place too. 2007 is now truly out of the way…however, there’s also 2008 to deal with. This, of course, means a whole new round of pitching, client meetings, year planning. Here at Hotcow we’ve been doing just that with much activity being planned for our existing clients and a whole host of new brands coming on board. These include representatives of the fashion, TV and drinks industries and the year is already shaping up to be exciting.

For many experiential marketing, whilst a rapidly growing industry sector, is still something of an esoteric art, poorly understood and largely underrated. However, with some more observation it becomes apparent that this discipline can add instant value to your client brand. And with companies as diverse as Fila, Wells Fargo and Volkswagen opening experiential marketing divisions and McDonalds declaring that mass marketing is no longer viable, it seems obvious that the global marketing industry is finally starting to take notice. The question is why?

It seems clear (but in these times of jargon and buzz words you can never be sure) that in order for any company to get the best from their brand experience they have to, first, actually understand what a “brand experience” is. To that end, we’ll tell you…just to make sure of course.

The brandchannel.com lists “brand experience” in its directory of terms as;

These days’ marketers are, more often than not, looking further afield than traditional marketing disciplines in order to gain attention for their product’s promotion. One concept that has grown in popularity recently is that of the use of installation art as a central, or stand alone, aspect of a marketing campaign…which is all very interesting, but just what is installation art?

With the recent rumours that some London cabbies have been paid by an as yet unnamed company to eulogise their latest (also unnamed) product buzz marketing has, once again, been in the media spotlight…so then, just what is it?

In order to make any reasonable commentary on marketing to women in the early part of the 21st century it is first essential that the position of women as consumers is stated as definitely as possible. To start with the most startling of stats, according to a report from 2000, “women purchase or influence the purchase of 80% of all consumer goods and influence 80% of all healthcare decisions.”

Guerrilla Marketing, we’ve all heard of it, and we’ve all heard of the odd hugely successful campaign. More than one though? Perhaps not…so we at Hotcow have decided to give you our take on the issue with our top ten of the most successful guerrilla campaigns in memory – read on.

Travel for pleasure first became fashionable during the 17th century with the Grand Tour, but it wasn’t until the industrial revolution that the tourism industry began to grow. In 1758 the first “official” travel company – Cox & Kings – was formed and, whilst at this point tourism was still an activity for the wealthy, it was just under 100 years later that the pioneer of modern mass market tourism, Thomas Cook, founded his company in 1841 with the organisation of the first package tour in history.

A good publicity stunt is as valuable as weeks, if not months, of PR work. A bold statement perhaps but one which has been proven on many occasions – here at Hotcow we’ll even go one step further; for charities a good publicity stunt can make the difference between a bad year and a great one.

The consumer electronics industry has, in the past decade, been revolutionised by three things; miniaturisation, falling prices and a perception that technology is no longer simply functional but also a brand dominated style choice. Add to this the fact that, in the main, most technology products have a maximum shelf life of 12 months before they are rendered obsolete or a significant update is issued and it’s possible to see just how intense competition for a market share is. If a product does not make an instant, significant impact then it is unlikely to have the chance to gain a foothold.